Mao & Mangoes, Together Again

I recently had the opportunity to sip hot black coffee with a high ranking Pakistani official, and while everyone else is talking Osama and war, we talked fruit.

“My basic objective here is to improve the trade between Pakistan and China,” he told me. “I’m trying to diversify the trade, to go into newer fields…”

He counted these newer fields off: jewelry, live crabs, frozen fish. But more than any of these, he wanted to talk mangoes.

Pakistani mangoes.

“Of course every representative says their product is the best, but I think there is a general consensus that the Pakistani mango — even in the EU, and the US — the Pakistani mango is the most expensive. The reason being: it is supposed to be the best.”

I’d never even heard of a Pakistani mango! (Or of their thriving seafood trade, to be perfectly fair.)

“It has been exported all over the world. Unfortunately, it has been introduced to China, but not at a very large scale.”

If you’re in Hong Kong, or Guangzhou, you might find one. But Shanghai and Beijing? Don’t hold your breath.

“We are thinking of going for a mango show. We have already contacted most of the bigger chain stores, and they are willing to give us space to hold a mango festival in Shanghai.”

In Shanghai? That’s outrageous! I ate a piddling Chinese mango for breakfast this morning, and I think he needs to be up here peddling his wares in Beijing!

Looks like the next trip to Guangzhou has a new mission. A mango mission.